A mother and son smuggled AK-47 rifles and ammunition from Hong Kong to the mainland by courier mail for two years, Shenzhen Customs officials claim.
Law enforcement authorities in Hong Kong said yesterday they were unaware of the alleged smuggling, despite measures to exchange information on cross-border crime.
The Shenzhen Customs office revealed on Monday it started the investigation last April after an express package sent from Hong Kong to the port of Huangang was found to contain an AK-47 rifle, a military hand gun, two air pistols and four stun guns, the Southern Metropolitan News Web site reported yesterday.
Police arrested the woman and her son on April 9 at their home in Huangpu, near Guangzhou. They said they had received the arms from Hong Kong and sold them across the country, the report said. In the following months, police made arrests in Guangzhou, Nanning, Xiamen, Guilin and Huangzhou.
A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department declined to comment yesterday on whether there had been a security slip.
'We had a mobile X-ray system introduced last August to tighten up screening of mainland-bound goods,' she said.